Would You Support Non-Infringing use of P2P?


Although I must reluctantly agree with those in the industry on the fact that peer to peer technology is primarily used by music, movie and software pirates. I must however, disagree with them on the fact that

a) "They" cannot speak for what others may want to use peer to peer technology for.

b) With the Internet being as big as it is and growing everyday it's very difficult to reach people without paying a pay-per-search search engine to list your offerings for consumption by the masses

c) We have distributed over 3.7 million non-infringing files on various file sharing
networks. So there is some interest in non-infringing content. We push out about nine gigabytes of data per day to the Gnutella community. This is all non-infringing content.

d) Novice users have a difficult time finding free content on the network. How many times have you seen sites that promote the idea of "free downloads" for software that is really shareware which means limited use.

Personally, I've argued that the record, movie and software companies have a legal right to do what they are doing and if you're sharing content which infringes on someone's copyright you should not expect a peer to peer service to provide protection for you. (see:http://www.gnutellaforums.com/showth...gal+Aspects+of) In addition to this being virtually impossible, if anyone was able to achieve it that is a) A user base that reaches critical mass and b) some way of providing security and privacy to the user's that service would be in danger of being shut down due to the fact they (the creators of such system ) would probably have the ability to monitor or control what happens within the network.

The reason the public at large does not use peer to peer technology probably has more to due with the fact that basically the technology has receive such negative coverage in the media. Another thing that leads to this gross misconception is the idea that the concept of file sharing in and of itself is illegal, which has been ruled in a court of law to not be true. I personally got involved with the filesharing community when this it was the prevailing strategy.

The record companies have finally come to their senses and started doing what they should have done in the first place and that is, go after the individual users who are infringing on the copyrights of others. this will have two primary effects on the file sharing community at large and they are:

a) a serious reduction in the amount of infringing content- this will unfortunately lead to a decrease in user population because those who use the service to pirate software and music will not be able to do so any more.

b) cleared the way for content publishers to use the networks as they were intended to be used and that is as a distribution platform for non-infringing media.

So the question is to the average P2P user is would you support non-infringing use?

If so, how? If not why?

I'm interested in all opinions.

__________________
Lee Evans, President
LeeWare Development
http://www.leeware.com

I fully support the use of P2P to share 'non-infringing content' as you put it.

The web's has reduced the cost of publishing textual information to the point where it is within the grasp of the majority of people in the developed world. That's a fantastic achievement if you think about it - you or I or Auntie Gertrude can now share our views on growing roses or the war in Iraq without undue cost or govenmental control.

Of course, the system has problems. Although the cost of publication on the web is minimal, that cost must still be bourne by the publisher and is a function of the number of readers the published material has. I've heard it called the slashdot effect, when an innocuous small web site or private publication suddenly grows in fame, to the point where the resources of the publisher are exhausted and the site becomes unavailable.

More bandwidth-intensive media excerbate the problem - a new band may publish a few mp3s of their music cheaply using a standard ISP account, but if they become popular they may find themself paying for thousands or tens of thousands of downloads rather than the expected dozen - or of course having to withdraw their free downloads.

P2P technology goes a long way towards solving this problem. The availability of content grows with it's popularity as (hopefully) those downloading it think it worthy of sharing at their own cost. With the cost of publishing spread over a much larger group of people, popular (and bandwidth-intensive) content may once again be published by you or I or Auntie Gertrude. Only now old Gertie can share her photos of her prize winning roses without annying her ISP, and the evidence of atrocities in war-zones can be judged from video source rather than text-summaries in the media.

I imagine in a few years finding magnet link (or whatever they evolve into) on a web-site giving access to a popular audio, video or binary file will be commonplace.

Long way to go yet, but P2P has a valuable role to play. The best we can do to encourage it now is to provide legitimate content.

Bad form replying to oneself, but I did a little googling for sites which have content that people obviously want that have sadly had to restrict download availability. It's a big list - there's an enormous demand for methods of sharing the cost of distributing content.

I certainly don't condone lawlessness in any form, but I can't help wondering what has kept hackers away from the RIAA. They certainly must be making some enemies. And there is no shortage of people who could pull it off. Or maybe I'm wrong--maybe it's impossible to do. Maybe no one out there has the skill. Anyway, I'm sure glad that such an illegal act hasn't been perpetrated. Isn't everyone else?

Where have you been all of this time the RIAA site have been hacked and DoS offline so many times but what's the point of conducting such attacks against an organization?

__________________
Lee Evans, President
LeeWare Development
http://www.leeware.com

Lee, I don't think you read my post. I wasn't calling for it -- just wondering about the absence of it. Haven't heard about any effective, i.e. long-lasting disruptions. As to what would be the point I can't say. Some would say what's the point of removing a cancerous growth. Me, I'm neutral.

Good Point -- I can only assume, perhaps the holes used to exploit the site in the past have been closed or they found a way to mitigate the risks or effect of such hotile actions.

__________________
Lee Evans, President
LeeWare Development
http://www.leeware.com

OK. First of all we need to know 3 things:

1. File sharing should always be free for the user.
2. Most file sharing programs are supported by the use of ads or banners, and offering a 'plus' version.
3. File sharing is illegal right now due to copyright infringement. I'm not saying it should or should not be illegal, I'm just stating the facts-- right now, file sharing is illegal.

Now, having said that, we can proceed with describing a solution that may make everybody happy, or at least the great majority of people anyway.

What we can do is to make the file sharing companies (Kazaa, LimeWire, Morpheus, etc.) pay a yearly renewable tax or user fee to be able to provide their file sharing program. They probably make enough money from the ads, banners, and plus versions to be able to pay the tax, maintain the program, and make some profit besides. This money could then be distributed to the record companies and/or recording artists. Sort of like buying a license to use the songs, if you will. We can't make every company pay for each individual song but we can make them pay a lump sum each year to buy a 'file sharing license' or something like that.

This way the record companies get paid for the use of their songs, the consumer gets the songs free, the only unhappy people would be the file sharing companies, but as long as they still make a profit I don't see that they would complain too much.[FONT=century gothic][COLOR=deeppink][SIZE=3]

#1 File Sharing IS free for the User
#2 Ad supported software is only offered by SOME P2P developers there are ones that don't require ADs
#3 File sharing IS NOT ILLEGAL sharing infringing content is ILLEGAL

see http://www.leeware.com

__________________
Lee Evans, President
LeeWare Development
http://www.leeware.com

1. I know file sharing is free NOW, but what I am saying is that it should ALWAYS be free; that there should always be a free version in the future . If you want to charge for the plus version it should be ok as long as you still keep that free version available. Maybe I didn't make that clear enough.

2. Ok, maybe not every company is supported by ads, but they all make money somehow , right? They wouldn't be running if they were losing money! And I did say 'most' and not 'all'. So the idea would still be valid.

3. You got me there; I didn't state that right. Thank you for correcting me.

(I noticed that you didn't say anything about my idea , just my so-called facts. I don't know what to think about that.)